Kaleidoscopes. Not only a brilliant word, but also some of the best fun in a tube you can have, apart from eating Pringles of course. As a child I’d spend ages looking into them sometimes even two at a time, which is probably why my eyesight is so bad. As a result, I have been unashamedly drawn to Andy Gilmore’s geometric grids of wonderment.

There’s something so colourful and mathematically perfect about these works that it makes me crave for symmetry in every aspect of my life. Created simply with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Andy says he uses “just the basic tools and a lot of time”, highlighting the painstaking effort that’s gone into them. Though aesthetically pleasing, these hypnotic arrangements often reference scales and melodies in music, adding another dimension to them all.

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We’d wager a substantial sum of money that most of you reading this have never really considered how it is possible you’re reading this. Like television or the limitless supply of pepperoni slices at your local Pizza Hut buffet, the Internet is something that just happens.

Studio Swine has built a reputation for its interdisciplinary practice that combines sculpture, cinema, poetry and research into an immersive experience for its viewers. Internationally renowned for its ability to build a rich narrative through multimedia, sensory experiences, the studio’s latest project ∞ Blue (Infinity Blue) takes us on a prehistoric journey of Earth’s molecular history. The experiential installation centres around one of the world’s smallest living beings, the cyanobacteria.

We don’t often find ourselves shuffling down Savile Row here at It’s Nice That. Known the world over for the immaculate suits hand-cut by the dozens of tailors who toil away in this particularly swanky slice of Mayfair, the street is synonymous with a particularly well heeled kind of affluence. Artist Hormazd Narielwalla hopes his latest publication, Paper Dolls will help viewers see Savile Row in a more artistic light.

Regular readers of It’s Nice That will know that pretty much since we settled in this corner of the internet there’s been one artist who has always sat with us: Jordy van den Nieuwendijk. Despite the countless times we’ve written about the Dutch artist from our London base, however, he’s never had an exhibition here – until this week. Opening tomorrow (28 November) at Public Gallery in east London, Jordy will quite rightly have his very own first UK solo show titled, There’s A Snake In My Boot.

In today’s world of contemporary art where anything can be deemed art as long as enough people say so, the ever-blurring boundaries of the subject are becoming fuzzier by the minute. If one end of the spectrum sees art reaching its metaphysical heights, at the other there are organisations like Forensic Architecture, which works to uncover the truth of real events in minute detail. Although the London-based research agency seems far removed from today’s general perception of contemporary art — a world filled with eccentricity, concerns of gallery representation and commercial sales — Forensic Architecture is nonetheless nominated for this year’s prestigious Turner Prize. Having just won the Beazley Design of the Year award, the agency is treading new territory, navigating between the spheres of science, architecture and now, art, to provide justice for some of the world’s most underrepresented communities.

It’s been a long year, hasn’t it? And your eyes are tired, aren’t they? We can help. Why not soothe those sore lids by taking a visual stroll down recent-memory lane with 25 of our most read photography pieces of 2018? From KangHee Kim’s satisfyingly shimmering images of celestial streetlamps to Sam Gregg’s gloriously vivid snapshots of life in sun-soaked Naples, all of life this year gone is here.
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Film, all things considered, is a pretty good medium. Over the past 12 months we’ve covered all sorts, from documentaries detailing the daily lives of London’s North Korean immigrant community to a chef-heavy music video by the much-loved rapper Loyle Carner. We like film. And you evidently do, too, if this Top 25 film-related It’s Nice That pieces from 2018 is anything to go by.
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We count ourselves incredibly lucky here at It’s Nice That, largely because we come into contact with such superb examples of illustration on a daily basis. As you can see from the features below, which were the 25 most read on the site over the past 12 months, the bulk of what comes our way is good. Really good. Lap up the creme de la creme below. You deserve it. After all, you got these pieces where they are today.

You can’t have failed to notice how much attention It’s Nice That focuses on graphic design. This year we have, as ever, cast a gaze over everything from big name commercial work to the fantastic self-initiated projects that feel as fresh now as they did the first day they arrived perfectly formed in our inbox. Practitioners and enthusiasts alike, consider this a crash course in the year that was in graphic design.
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Animation’s in our blood at It’s Nice That. Ever since we first crawled into virtual being all those years ago, we’ve never stopped looking for the brightest and best of the animated world. If you’re looking for a fun way to soak up some creative juices over the Christmas period, why not peruse the top 25 animation articles we’ve published this year? You won’t regret it.
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From Burberry getting a new logo courtesy of Peter Saville to Marina Abramović promising to electrify herself with one million volts in the name of art, via Taylor Swift butting heads with Spike Jonze over allegations of copy-catting, and the release of a new typeface that claims to be able to boost your memory, a lot has happened in the creative world since we said hello to January back in, well, January.

As we start thinking about boarding packed trains to various parts of the country, letting It’s Nice That have a bit of time to itself, we’d like to take this opportunity to share with you, dear readers, the 100 most read articles we published in 2018. We’ve got news, work posts, and features – all of which explore the breadth of contemporary creativity. Thanks for reading!
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We’re not sure about you, but there’s something about this time of year that makes everyone here at It’s Nice That want to curl up on the sofa with a decent long read. Handy, then, isn’t it, that we’ve curated this bumper batch of the best features we’ve published on the site in 2018? They’re practically crying out to be consumed with a fistful of Pringles and an ill-advised second glass of snowball.
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As the year draws to a close and we reflect on the creative comings and goings 2018 has brought, York-based illustrator Adam Higton and French illustration duo Maxime Prou and Adéle Favreau, otherwise known as Atelier Bingo, have been working away interpreting the 12 months of the year into an A4 poster. Collaborating over Dropbox Paper, the group’s final illustrative interpretation will be available for free at our monthly event, Nicer Tuesdays.

“Illustrating data is hard,” says Mona Chalabi. Given that Mona is a data journalist who specialises in illustration, she’d know. Over the past few years, London-born, New York-based Mona has produced work for the likes of the International Organization for Migration, the Bank of England, and superstar statistician Nate Silver’s number-heavy editorial platform FiveThirtyEight.

Quickly coming out just as we reach the end of the creative year is Kim Gehrig’s newest advert, Viva La Vulva for Libresse. And, in true Kim style, it’s arguably one of the most joyful, inclusive and confidence-boosting pieces of advertising of 2018.

Emulsion is a new publication documenting cutting-edge arts and culture. Designed by the London-based design studio Our Place, the magazine is founded on pluralistic objectives with the hopes of pushing boundaries through its imaginative design and content. Its first issue is packed with artist interviews, photography, fashion, music, original artworks and opinion pieces from the likes of some of It’s Nice That’s favourite creatives including Jonathan Castro and Ida Ekblad.

Hwashin Choi’s illustrations reject the flat and digital styles of working that are so popular today. Instead, she repurposes traditional modes of realist drawing for a contemporary audience, paying close attention to how light falls on objects and the characterisation of objects and facial expression.

If ever you wanted to examine the human relationship to, and reliance on, the very resources which make up our world and how this fundamentally shapes everything we are, you need look no further than the Caspian Sea. Located at the intersection of Asia and Europe, it is the world’s largest inland body of water and one of the oldest and most important oil and natural gas-producing regions on Earth.

Over the past 12 months, Google has been delving deep into the fascinating world of machine learning with articles on Google Design, plus new open-source projects and products. With AI becoming an increasingly prevalent part of the creative world, this should come as no surprise. Also unsurprisingly, the work it’s carried out in the field is innovative, exciting, and stimulating.

2018’s Review of the Year is supported by Google Design. Google Design, for the uninitiated, is an initiative led by an uber-talented selection of developers, designers, and writers at Google. They’re all about working across teams to create top-notch content and to produce events that champion creativity and showcase the brilliant design work Google does day in and day out. Having celebrated a Milan Design Week debut, amongst other achievements, it feels like Google Design has pushed on from an already exciting position.

We’ve decided to look back on a quartet of projects that turned our head in 2018. For more, check out Google Design’s Best of 2018, where the editorial team highlights all of the year’s noteworthy design projects.h3. Google Fonts + 한국어 소개

Emily Oberman can hardly believe her luck. The designer, a partner in Pentagram’s New York office since 2012, is a self-professed Harry Potter “super fan” and for the past three years has been working to bring some of the newest projects in the wizarding universe to life. Put simply, it’s been a dream project to work on something that, as she puts it, “entertains the world”.

We all have an idea of what fashion in Tokyo entails. Harajuku girls, manga-inspired makeup, doll-like dresses embellished with lace, Muji minimalism and bold, Comme Des Garçons silhouettes. Our perceptions of Japanese fashion from the West understand boldness and visual excess, yet there are innumerable nuances within Tokyo’s fashion scene as seen through labels such as Pugment.

As we near the end of our look back at 2018, we’ve enlisted journalist, broadcaster and editor Kieran Yates to look back over the key moments which shaped the creative (and wider) world over the past 12 months. From logo-heavy football shirts to Love Island, these are some of the stories that got us talking.

Shinwoo Park has been running the graphic design studio Paperpress since 2016 in Seoul. Working across a variety of disciplines wherever graphics are concerned, from the tongue of a shoe trainer to pin badges and poster design, Paperpress locates the point where “graphic design and description overlap” to create expressive designs that suit each client.

“I think with photography you can create a whole fantasy around yourself, so when I design a set and develop a character for a picture, I try to create an entirely new reality for me and the people I’m portraying, hopefully, a reality that is better than the actual one,” explains México City-based photographer Andrés Mañon. With several commissions for the likes of i-D Mexico under his belt, Andrés’ work does exactly as he intends, building elaborate worlds full of over-saturated, yet altogether compelling characters.

Our final speaker at Nicer Tuesdays November was Leipzig-based illustrator, Anna Haifisch. After seeing Anna speak at Eike König’s After School Club in Offenbach during July this year, we quickly realised the illustrator was a must to speak at Nicer Tuesdays before the year was up, also doubling up as the first comic reading we’ve had at our monthly event.

Joining us at Nicer Tuesdays November was Yuri Suzuki, shortly after the designer’s slightly surprising announcement that he was the newest Pentagram partner. Even Yuri notes how the decision for him to join the design partnership was a surprise to himself, recalling how when the initial conversation began his first question was “Why!?”

A little while ago, art director Anna Sullivan spotted an old vintage postcard featuring stilt walking shepherds. Stilt walking shepherds! Curious, as anyone in their right mind would be, Anna started digging into why these shepherds were atop stilts — which we now only associate with childhood games and circus performances — to herd sheep.

It’s Nice That favourites Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared created by the fun-filled directors Becky and Joe, will head to Sundance Film Festival next year. The Blinkink creative duo will premier their Youtube-hit series at the largest independent film festival in the US this January 2019.

Boiler Room is yet again shedding light on important social issues in a part of the world that is little known to us. The second film for its Contemporary Scenes series is To Live & Die in Manila and sees music orientated artists from the Filipino capital emotively express their frustrations under the bloodbaths incurred by the president of just over two years, Rodrigo Duterte.

New York based producer and DJ Anthony Naples has been an It’s Nice That favourite ever since we first heard the effervescent Mad Disrespect on some sweaty dancefloor somewhere back in 2012. We were hooked from that half-remembered moment on.

Yung Hua Chen’s photography is seductive and cinematic. The Taipei-based photographer captures alluring portraits for fashion designers and also, purely for the love of the medium. Recently, she’s been shooting her lover Chihtian Shih. She tells It’s Nice That, “he inspires me in many kinds of ways. He’s an actor and plays many different roles that give him different life experiences.” Chihtian’s brooding good looks are seen in all types of situations; dappled in a dusky sunlight, walking the streets of Taipei, peacefully sleeping still in his clothes.

For the past ten years, graphic and spacial design studio Julia has been producing work for clients from the cultural and commercial sector, including everything from typefaces to books, magazines, exhibitions, posters, websites and identities. Having been formed in late 2008 by Valerio Di Lucente, Erwan Lhuissier and Hugo Timm, Valerio and Erwan (who have been running the studio since May of this year) are celebrating a decade of Julia. We caught up with the pair to find out a bit more about how their work has taken shape over this time.

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